The small rover carried by the Soviet Mars 3 lander was named Prop-M. It was a compact experimental rover designed to move a short distance away from the lander while remaining connected by a power and communications cable.
Prop-M weighed about 4.5 kilograms and was designed to travel on skis rather than conventional wheels. A pair of small metal rods helped it detect obstacles, while a 15-meter umbilical would have linked it to the lander. The Soviet Mars 2 and Mars 3 landers each carried a Prop-M rover, making the design part of a broader Soviet attempt to explore the Martian surface directly.
Mars 3 achieved the first soft landing on Mars on December 2, 1971, but communications stopped roughly 20 seconds later. Because the lander failed so quickly, its Prop-M rover was never successfully deployed or operated on the surface. Lunokhod was a Soviet lunar rover, Marsokhod was a separate rover concept and test designation, and Prop-M2 was not the rover carried by Mars 3.